One manner of creating or forming tunnels in rock is to drill holes, insert an explosive into the holes, and detonate the explosives. Such explosive operations require a significant amount of planning and the use of explosives may increase risks associated with such operations.
As an alternative, mobile mining machines have been developed for cutting or milling tunnels and bores underground. The use of such machines in relatively soft materials such as coal is commonplace. However, cutting or milling tunnels and bores in materials harder than coal such as rock tunnels for mining and road construction may be problematic due to the nature of the rock. The cutting or milling operations typically remove a relatively small amount of material in order to avoid damaging the cutting tools and the equipment driving the tools. Misalignment of the mining machines may result in the cutting tools removing too much material along part of a milling path and not enough material being removed along other portions of the path. Such uneven cutting may result in excessive wear to the tooling and/or mining machine at locations where the cutting depth is too great and inefficient material removal at locations at which the cutting depth is too shallow.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0204190 discloses a mobile mining machine for cutting or milling tunnels and bores in rock. The machine includes a tool drum rotatably mounted on a support arm. The support arm may be raised and lowered and also swung from side to side. A slide carriage unit provides in-feeding capability of the tool drum.
The foregoing background discussion is intended solely to aid the reader. It is not intended to limit the innovations described herein, nor to limit or expand the prior art discussed. Thus, the foregoing discussion should not be taken to indicate that any particular element of a prior system is unsuitable for use with the innovations described herein, nor is it intended to indicate that any element is essential in implementing the innovations described herein. The implementations and application of the innovations described herein are defined by the appended claims.